Ordinary Days
by ulstergirl
Summary: Scully pays Mulder an unexpected visit. Complete as is.
1. Chapter 1

There's more to this, but I started this eight years ago and didn't finish it, so the ending is a) going to take a while and b) be entirely unexpected, I'm sure. Just to warn you.

Set probably early Season 6.

* * *

She'd been feeling lonely. 

That wasn't something she felt too often anymore. He was just a phone call away, just a button pressed hesitantly and his voice would come, and offer comfort.

But he wasn't answering his phone.

Earlier, though, they'd had something of an- altercation. An argument that seemed far too contrived for her liking. There was, as always, the usual alien abduction case, but with a new twist. After all, Michael Kritschgau had left his mark on Mulder. And Scully knew it irritated him.

For some reason, it even irritated her.

All the years had passed, and all the denials of his theories hadn't grown a hair weaker, but it was like a groove they had fallen into. Her denials were often as intangible as his realities; more often than not the truth was somewhere between.

But then there was Michael Kritschgau. He'd struck too close. He had become, in a way, an ally of Scully's.

But in that, he'd alienated Mulder from her.

And, if anything, she'd wanted to believe. It didn't make her happy every day, to see his face crumple even slightly at the newest rebuttal. Even when he made some sarcastic or flippant remark. Even when he quietly and calmly restated whatever he'd been trying to say to her. She'd kept it up all these years because it was her duty, and because he expected no less of her. Like Abraham drawing Isaac nearer and nearer the top of the mountain and hoping against hope that the cause would change. Whether it be God or her own heart she was following, she had believed in that cause.

Until Kritschgau.

He had ruined everything.

Scully was the enemy; Scully had always been the enemy. But the last thing Mulder needed was a friend. In her being so contrary to him, he had a sounding board. He'd finally accepted her as such, as something to reflect back his ideas in a new light, if only so he could revise them and throw them at her again.

But then her gaze had turned away from him, and inward. To fight the battles for him she had had to at least gain knowledge of the one growing within. And while she fought for knowledge in that lab, Kritschgau began talking. Saying the things Mulder needed to hear, or maybe only the one thing Mulder needed to hear.

The one thing Scully could never tell him.

Even if it were within her power, Scully was terrified that she would bend the truth for him. If reality was as heinous as Kritschgau's description, Scully was afraid that she could never present it to Mulder so bluntly. Somehow there would have to be a little sugar coating, if only to ease it down. Just like the lies she had told Skinner. But even that was still up in the air.

All of it had made her feel a little hurt. But it had only surfaced once she'd had recovered; the whole ordeal of the hospital, the memory of his face as he gazed down into her own, the touches and the whispered words, the arguments even as she was barely clinging to life with her fingernails. After the rosary and the whispered prayers she could begin to think and breathe and remember again. Remember that Mulder's trust had extended past her again. There were others; the trust of Skinner was suspicious to her, trust of Krycek had been facetious, Deep Throat had been valued but he had lied, and X had led Mulder to a source that Scully wanted to kill with every fiber of her being. Marita Covarrubius made Scully's blood boil. The one time they'd met had been enough to convince her that maybe Mulder didn't have enough brains when it came to women. Phoebe Green certainly spoke of that affliction.

The argument had begun over some little thing. Maybe it had been when their flight was to leave. Some silly little thing like that. If the same wiretap agent had been supervising their office for the past four or so years, he might have caught the nuances in Scully's voice, the stress in Mulder's, and understood that there was an undercurrent of frustration and mistrust there. Something that she found alien now. Something she'd never wanted him to feel toward her again.

Though they had patched things up a little, she was still a little worried as she knocked at his door. Could he have gone without her? She would beat him into the ground, if he had; maybe even give him a little guilt trip about leaving a still-sick woman to fend for herself around Skinner.

Mulder was wearing only jeans when he answered the door. His apartment was utterly dark and he squinted out at her from within. "Scully?" he said.

"We need to talk," she said. The harshness of her voice sounded somehow reassuring inside her own head.

"Yeah, I'll be over at your apartment in an hour or so, we can talk then."

"I'd rather it be now, Mulder."

"Why, Scully? It's still early." His hand was still resting against the doorframe, preventing her from crossing the threshold into his apartment.

"Fox?"

The voice hit Scully's ears like a bullet. Female, slightly breathy, late twenties or so. From the bedroom that she wasn't sure of the existance of, by the sound of it. Maybe the bed was hidden in one of the kitchen cabinets. At least she was sure those existed.

Mulder glanced back into the apartment, then back at her. Their eyes met, and Scully knew that her disapproval was showing in her own.

He chooses to trust another, and then he chooses to do this.

Why shouldn't he? You don't make love to him. Partner and lover are two very different things. You knew that. You knew that whatever ounces of attraction might exist in you, you were still only partners. And you wanted it that way. No more of the double standard for you, you said. You said that none of the rumors would ever be true about the two of you. But the truth only exists between you, him, and the wiretap agent.

"I'll see you in an hour." She began walking down the hall, toward the elevator.

"Scully, wait." Only a slightly pleading note in his voice. He wouldn't reduce himself to begging unless she demanded it.

"I can't, I have some research to do before we talk."

"At least let me walk you out to your car." His voice faded, as though he was going to grab a coat and make good on his statement.

"No, Mulder, that woman in there probably needs you right now. More than I do."

She turned away and walked to the elevator, punched the button with some trepidation.

"Scully, come back here."

She made no response. She didn't understand why tears were stinging the backs of her eyelids. She didn't want to understand.

"Scully, I told you to come back here," Mulder said, leaving the safety of his doorway for the harsh light of the hallway. Again, Scully faintly heard the breathy voice from within.

He reached her and grabbed her arm just as the elevator car arrived.

"Mulder, let me go." There was no hint of panic or excitement in her voice, only dry firmness. She knew that he would never hurt her.

"I'll see you in an hour," Mulder said, finally releasing her arm and allowing her to step inside the elevator. She pressed the button and set her eyes forward, but they caught his own.

She tried to read his eyes but it was a wasted effort.

The doors closed.


	2. Chapter 2

She considered not opening the door to him, but she'd tried that once before. He had kept knocking until the very instant she had given up and gone to the door, only to see him walking away with the wounded look on his face.

"Come inside," she said. A white t-shirt and leather jacket had joined the jeans.

She cast her eyes down as he crossed the threshold and refused to meet his gaze as she sat down on the couch beside him.

"I wanted to ask about Michael Kritschgau," Scully finally said, looking up as she regained her composure. "Is there anything he told you that I could--" She couldn't remember what she had come up with in the past hour. What had it been? "--help check up on?"

That hadn't been the right ending, but Mulder didn't seem to care. He was staring at her. His face was utterly serious, no quirky smile to hide any hint or glimmer in his eyes. His hair was wet; at least he'd had the decency to shower before coming over.

"He did what you've been trying to do for a long time, Scully," Mulder finally said. His eyes were slightly narrowed, that look reserved for things he didn't quite believe. His eyes looked into hers questioningly. Mulder the psychologist was at work here, saying things for effect again.

"He got under my skin, just as he did yours, and did some damage."

"So he's one of those rare individuals we both ended up trusting, at one time or another?"

"That doesn't mean I wanted to," Mulder said. He awkwardly lifted himself from the couch and went over to stand in front of her fireplace. He ran his thumb over the mantlepiece and stared at an imaginary speck of dust. "That doesn't mean there aren't reservations in the trust I have afforded him." He looked at her again. "It certainly doesn't mean that he took your place, either, Scully."

"No one would want to, Mulder. This is the X-Files we're talking about." She gave him a genuine smile, this time without the sting of tears to taint it. "No one wants us."

"Except the whole of the government," Mulder said, finally letting one of those quirky grins through.

"There is that," she admitted. He came back to the couch and sat down beside her.

"You said we needed to talk. I think we do."

"I meant about Kritschgau."

"That was before you heard that voice in my apartment."

"That's true."

There was a silence, and then Mulder said, "I think we should talk about that."

"What about it, Mulder?" Scully cleared her throat and looked at him.

"How did that make you feel?" This was another one of those looks. His eyes weren't quite boring into hers. Eddie Van Blundht had given her the same look, almost.

"It doesn't make any difference."

"How did that change your opinion of me?"

"Mulder, it's your life and I'm not fit to judge you."

"Don't give me that." Mulder inched forward until he was dominating her sight. "You've already judged me."

"I just wish you hadn't."

He sat back, and nodded. "Okay, and I feel the same way about Ed Jerse."

Scully snorted derisively. "That was a mistake."

"You finally admit it?" he said, looking up.

She almost held her tongue, but then looked at him. "Ed Jerse was a walking talking mistake. He couldn't do anything right except--"

She stopped there and began twisting her hands. Almost as instantly she stopped.

"What is it that makes us feel this way?" Mulder said, turning toward her. "We've drawn a line and we're angry when anyone else crosses it. As if we're leaving it specifically for that person."

"Do you truly believe that?"

"I don't know, Scully. I was a little angry at you, and she was available."

"So it was meaningless."

He nodded, then stopped himself. "I don't even know," he said. "And it's not as if I went out and intentionally picked up a girl just to hurt you. There are easier ways. Besides, we're not interested in each other as sexual partners."

"Yeah," Scully said. "I was just--thrown, that was all."

Mulder turned his head and looked at her for a long moment. She finally met his gaze and they stared at each other.

"I think we've been lying to each other."

Scully looked at him, smiling, but he wasn't, and soon the smile dropped from her face. He was being serious.

"About what." The dry toneless voice was back again, the smile lost with the humor.

"I think Ed Jerse threw me off because I've never pursued a relationship in that manner with you, and I guess I felt jealous that he'd had the gall to before I had."

"And you think it's the same for me about that girl in your apartment."

Mulder nodded.

After a second Scully stood up and said, "No, Mulder," and walked into the kitchen. With trembling hands she pulled a teapot and box of tea bags from the cabinet, began pouring water into the pot.

After a few beats she felt Mulder's breath on the back of her neck. "Give me a better explanation. You always seem to have one."

"We are male and female," Scully said, after a pause, and looked him in the eye. "We've been resisting part of nature this far to keep us apart, and that of us which is primal feels betrayed whenever one of us is with another."

"That's the only reason." Mulder felt the insane urge to kiss her. This was his partner, though. Not any woman on the street, not Phoebe Green, not even that woman in his apartment. The only woman he'd ever had a relationship with that could be properly termed "friendship." But even that was in peril. Nearly every other relationship had somehow ended up in the "obsession" category, and Scully was getting close.

"Mulder, we're friends. I don't want any more than that."

"You might not, but are you fighting that "primal" part of you right now? The part of you that demands by the rules of your biology that you procreate?" His lips quirked at the corners in an almost-smile.

"That's beside the point."

"Scully, that is the point. We've stayed together this long because we're attracted to each other." The smile was gone. There was something dangerous in his eyes. "If you were a guy, I wouldn't be as close to you. It's probably the same with you. If I'd been a woman you would have called me a whiny bitch and would've requested a transfer within the first few days."

"So all you're saying is that the idea of procreation is a part of our relationship."

"A major part of our relationship, maybe even more so than the trust, the ditchings, the killings, the sadness. Or maybe it's only up there with them."

She nodded. "It's just like outward appearances factor into any relationship. So?"

Mulder placed a hand on her stove, near the burning eye. His fingers twitched softly. "Scully, you may still have the urgings, but you no longer have that ability."

"Well, if that were true, I guess I'd--"

"Scully, it is true. Just as true as the fact that, as long as there is cancer in your body, you will be able to see the fetch of the dead. Just as true as I'm standing here." His voice trailed off, the longer he spoke; his fingers neared the burner. As though he wanted to punish himself for telling her a truth he didn't want her to hear.

"That explains..." she trailed off. She looked down at her hands, clenched around the edge of the countertop. The teapot began to whistle and she reached over absently, gritting her teeth against the pain as she placed it on the countertop and added the tea leaves.

"Explains what?" he asked, after a pause. He took her hand in his and studied the angry red burn. He pulled her hand under the tap and let a stream of cool water run over it. He didn't meet her eyes as he did this, nor did she reply to his minstrations beyond the involuntary clench of her fingers at the coolness of the water.

"I checked later--I was fertile at the time when Ed Jerse--" she closed her eyes, smiled sarcastically. "I thought I'd just been lucky when I didn't get pregnant. Gave me a kind of kick. And--" she pulled her hand from his, wrapped her arms around herself, ignoring the burning angry pain of her hand against the fabric. "I can't. No little red-headed children for my mother. No more little children of my own. No." She stopped. "Strange, isn't it. I never thought of myself as a good mother, but I wanted children. I wanted a little of me to survive all this, even if I was lost in whatever doom that son of a bitch has planned for me. I'd known I would. And now." She stopped again.

"Scully," Mulder said, taking her into his arms. A slight frown puckered his face as he heard her gasp at the pain still lingering inside her hand. "We'll get through this," he said, looking down at her. Her eyes were closed. This had come as a tremendous shock to her. _Good_, he thought.

He reached up and pushed some strands of red hair behind one of her ears, then leaned down and put his mouth up close. "Scully, don't say anything once I tell you this. One of the Kurt Crawford clones gave me some of your ova. It's in a completely safe place. I doubt even the President of the United States could find it. Even if he wanted to use them to his own nefarious purposes."

Scully's undamaged hand reached the collar of his t-shirt and grasped it with trembling fingers. Now that the mental pain had abated, slowly, she could feel the pain in her hand acutely. She smiled weakly. "So I guess that any man I feel worthy enough to help me make children--"

"Has to go through me first," Mulder whispered, looking down at her. "Do we need to go to the hospital?"

"No, no," Scully said, pulling away slightly. "All I need--" she cringed. "There's some aloe lotion in my medicine cabinet. I'll go get that."

"No, you sit down. I'll get it for you. Just make a wet washcloth." He seemed reluctant to let her go, though, and shot her a worried glance as he left the room.

She heard him open her medicine cabinet and begin to go through it, and then the phone rang. She put more force than she felt into her voice and answered.

"We've found the most likely woman. Brown hair, medium height, couldn't tell what eye color. We're searching her license plates now."

"Thanks," Scully said, then something occured to her. "You mean she had her own car?"

"As far as we can tell," Frohike said. "Look, Scully, if you're finally letting your redwood go, you and I could--"

"Langly has first dibs," Scully said to him, all seriousness in her voice.

"Who was that?" Mulder said, coming back into the room with aloe lotion.

Scully smiled, enigmatically. "I'll tell you later."

He took her uninjured hand and led her to the couch, sitting down next to her and taking her hand in both of his. His fingertips slid along the back of her hand as he smoothed aloe over the wound. The clock on the VCR read a little after one thirty. He tied the washcloth around the wound and patted it.

"Good as new," he said.

"That was Frohike telling me who came out of your apartment."

The only thing that changed about Mulder's expression was the tightness around his lips. "And who did Frohike say came out of my apartment?"

"He didn't know. He was checking the license plate."

"Scully, do you trust me?"

"No, I've spent five years of my life with someone I can't trust farther than I can throw him." Scully pulled her hand from his again and rubbed her thumb across the cloth in a circle.

"Please tell Frohike to stop looking for her."

"Why?" Scully snapped back into professional mode, cutting into him with a cool blue glance.

Now his face was blank. "What will you do once they tell you?"

"I'm not sure," she said, looking down at her hand. "Maybe nothing. Maybe just a thorough background check on the FBI database. Why does it matter?"

"Scully, if you've ever trusted me, trust me when I tell you that you must not pursue this."

"Give me a reason." She looked up again.

"You haven't given me one, and petty jealousy is not a good reason."

Why did his voice have to be so damned expressionless? She sighed. "I am not jealous of her."

"No, you were jealous of this," Mulder said, leaning forward. She closed her eyes as he kissed her forehead, her nose, her cheek. A few times after pulling some late shifts at the office she had come home and found herself imagining what it would be like to kiss Mulder. She'd put it out of her head. Well, she thought she had.

"Even if I was, you'll never get me to admit it," Scully said, her eyes still closed.

He was staring into her face, and though she'd drawn the line for him so recently he found he wanted to cross it again. Very unpartnerlike things flitted through his head. He understood it, though. It was as he had said earlier. Primal instincts and everything. Things they should be above, but were not. Things he wanted from her because they were more intimate than he'd ever been with any other human being in his life. She knew so many things about him, and judged him so little. The idea of having sex with her was secondary. If anything, it would ruin what they had right now.

"My Scully," Mulder said, drawing her against him and holding her there.

--

Mulder opened his eyes. Dark. And faint moaning.

He ripped the tangled comforter from around his legs, where it had tangled, and went to the doorway of Scully's bedroom.

Her legs savagely kicked the sheets away, leaving them bare and too pale in the darkness. Her injured hand was tucked under the pillow and her face was twisted slightly as she moaned something.

He turned on the hall lamp and moved into the room. In the arc of light her face was flushed, her brow furrowed. Her limbs moved restlessly, and she kept turning, as though to find a cool spot in the bed.

"Mulder," she finally said again, garbled and painful, but still his name.

He leaned down and put his cheek against her forehead while his hands pinned her shoulders to the bed so she wouldn't jerk away from him. She was burning up, twisting away from his grip, away from the warmth her own body had left in the sheets and mattress.

"...hurts," she whispered.

"I'll be right back," he said, for the first time breaking the darkness, and nearly ran to the bathroom to find a washcloth. He wet that and brought it back to her. Her eyelids were fluttering, her face still flushed. He placed the cloth on her head, picked up one of her hands and laid it across it to make sure she understood. Her eyes met his briefly.

"Aspirin," she whispered, then put her gaze toward the bathroom again.

He flipped the light on savagely and began scouring the medicine cabinet again. Thera-Flu might work, or maybe Tylenol Cold and Flu--he grabbed those and placed them hurriedly on her nightstand, then went to the kitchen and drew a glass of water.

When he came back she was trying to sit up. She took one look at the glass of water, shook her head. She picked up the Thera-Flu.

"That'll take a while, though," Mulder said, his forehead crinkling. "All right, then. Come on."

He left a single light on in the hallway and led her toward the kitchen. She sat down at the table and put her head on her crossed arms, closed her eyes as he tore open one of the paper packets and searched her cabinets for the coffee mugs. He guessed right on the second try.

"It's coming in a second, Scully," he said. He glanced back at her. She licked her chapped lips.

"Nothing like TheraFlu in the middle of the night," she said weakly.

He filled the mug with water and put it in the microwave, then poured out the pot of tea she had tried to prepare earlier. He walked over and sat next to her at the table, stared at the microwave as though willing it to go faster. When it irritated him too much, he placed a hand on Scully's forehead.

"That feels good," she murmured.

He put his hand at the base of her neck and pushed it upwards. His fingertips slid against the soft skin of her scalp, through the silky strands of her hair, and that, too, was burning up. She murmured something again, so low that he couldn't hear it.

"You're going to the hospital," he finally said.


	3. Chapter 3

"Sir?" Mulder asked, pulling back Scully's chair while directing a glance at their superior.

Skinner sat behind his desk, lightly holding a pen between two fingers. The soft light of his desk lamp reflected against his glasses and Mulder idly wondered whether the overhead lights actually worked. They never seemed to be on.

"It's come to my attention that a certain woman visited you a few nights ago, before Agent Scully entered the hospital, Agent Mulder, and I've been asked to ascertain her identity."

"On whose authority?" Mulder asked. Scully gave him a light glance but nothing more.

Skinner's jaw set. He looked away and then back at Mulder, somewhat angrily. "If you two didn't have one of the highest case-solved rates in the Bureau, I wouldn't have to put up with this," Skinner said. "For your information, Agent Mulder, the woman in question seems to be a mental patient at a local health center, released in the past few days after passing some minimal tests. I strongly caution you both and suggest that any further contact you have with this woman be brief."

"Duane Barry--" Mulder began.

"Endangered lives, and none of his stories were ever proven--"

"Sir, if I may--"

"Agent Mulder," Skinner broke in, his voice low. "I will not be challenged on this and Agent Scully is here to see to it that you do not go against these orders. You will have no further contact with this woman--"

Mulder stood and looked down at Skinner, his eyes cold. "Sir, you do not understand."

The silence in the room was almost uncomfortable as Scully stared down at her beige pumps and Skinner stared at the door Mulder had just slammed behind him. "Agent Scully," he finally broke.

"Sir," Scully said, looking up at him with eyes that were blue fire. He had not forgotten, nor had she, the extent to which she had lied to him. Her accusations. His partial guilt and his need to atone, expressed through his anger alone.

"I'm not going back on what I said earlier, and even if Agent Mulder does find this woman again, I'm counting on you to make sure that he's not too easily taken in. If some lies do lead to the truth, Mulder has possession of a lie now that could break things apart. This woman is a lie, Agent Scully. Don't forget that."

--

"Mulder, if you need to call me tonight, here's where I'll be."

She handed him a slip of paper. His hazel eyes traced the lines that formed the numbers, and he balled the paper in his fist, shoving it into his pocket.

"What about your cell phone--oh, forget it--"

"Yeah, and it's your turn to write the expense report on how I ruined your jacket and my blazer and that spare set of handcuffs and that pair of pantyhose."

Mulder raised an eyebrow as he sat down at his desk. "Skinner might not take that too well..."

"Wet cotton candy wasn't my idea of a good joke, Mulder."

He smirked, then said, "Why are you staying at Beth's house tonight?"

"Exterminators in the building. No roaches, just ladybugs."

"Aw, Scully, you could've come over--"

"And we'd each have an arm of the couch? Don't think so."

"I do have a bed--"

"In a kitchen cabinet? That's the only place it would fit."

At the same instant both of them remembered what had happened at his apartment. She looked down at her ID, played with it idly while he glanced over at his computer.

"Well," she said, looking up at him again. "See you Monday."

"Sure," he said vaguely, waving at her half-heartedly as she gathered up her briefcase and jacket and left.

--

Mulder was playing computer Tetris with one hand while he picked up the phone with the other.

"Mulder."

"It's me. Remember that case about half a year ago? The swamp monster thing?"

"Oh yes. Son of Flukeman," Mulder intoned. "What about it?"

"The agent we worked with, do you remember her?"

"Yeah, brunette, wasn't she? Didn't really help at all?"

"I had a bad bleeding episode during that, didn't I?"

"Yeah." Mulder's eyes blurred a little and the Tetris game slipped away from him. He sighed and quit the program.

"I just wanted to know," Scully said. "My doctor is trying to document what could've made my cancer turn around like that."

"Always want to help with things like that," he said, his gaze jerking toward the phone. She was telling him something. Something related to that case, that had just come up recently. "Look," he said, "I think that maybe we should see each other tomorrow. I'll call you later and we'll figure out a place, okay?"

"Sure," she said. "See you then."

Mulder thought about it a second. That suit had been ruined, and he had crammed into the corner of his closet. He'd forgotten to get it cleaned.

As he pulled the cord on the bulb and began rooting around, he heard a hurried knock at the door.

"Fox?"

He breathed a curse and turned the knob.

--

"This is what I found." Mulder flipped an evidence bag at Scully. She read the lines of white and black type on the top and then studied the contents of the bag.

"We never did get this to Pendrell, did we." She sounded a little mournful.

"Best lab tech I ever knew." Mulder shook his head and pounded his fist into the opposite hand. "I'm surprised that was in there when I looked for it."

"Was it still in that suit?" Scully's eyes flashed as she studied the object more carefully.

"Yeah. Can you tell by the smell?"

Scully looked up and met his eyes. The corner of her mouth went up a millimeter, and she went back to her perusal of his little gift.

_She must be seriously tired if she actually tried to smile at one of my jokes_ Mulder thought, remembering some rather interesting stakeouts with his then-standoffish partner.

"We should come here more often," Mulder said, looking around.

"I think even the homeless consider us regulars," Scully commented dryly.

They sat on the bench at the memorial, where they had laughed and shot each other's theories down more times than he sometimes cared to remember. Mulder reached into his pocket and found a few sunflower seeds. He offered Scully one, and she took it without comment but turned it over and over between her fingers instead of splitting and eating it.

"Why is this so important again?" Mulder fidgeted like a little boy.

"Not sure." She still sounded distracted.

Mulder shot a glance at his parked car. He could barely make out the shadow moving inside. He prayed Scully didn't happen to look in that direction.

"I think this is important," Scully finally said. She held it up so that the streetlight hit it. "That agent wanted this pretty bad. I think it's related to the one we recovered from the latest 'abduction' site."

"Yeah, they do look similar." He reached into the pocket of his leather jacket, and his hand emerged with a small plastic ziplock between two fingers.

"Obvious conclusion or not-so-obvious?" Scully looked back and forth between the two chips.

"Don't know. I could take 'em by the Lone Gunmen, get whatever whacked-out theories they have about it." Mulder chewed another sunflower seed.

Scully was silent, and finally Mulder looked over at her. "Are you still sick, Scully?"

"No." She turned and met his eyes. "Why do you ask?"

The sunflower seed fell from her fingers onto the bench, bounced off and hit the ground next to the discarded husk of another. Mulder's eyes followed it.

"I need to go," Mulder said, still staring down at the ground next to her feet. He looked up at her.

"What's going on?" Scully said suddenly, standing up and gazing down at him. "What is it?"

The evidence bags fell, unnoticed, from her suddenly senseless hands.

"Later, Scully," he said, reaching out and taking her wrist, holding it a bare second. "I'll call you later."

He tucked the evidence bags into his pocket and walked away, and Scully watched him go, not understanding at all. _Samantha_ Scully thought, remembering what Skinner had told her earlier.

"It's Sam, isn't it?"

Her voice reached him and he hesitated. He kept on walking, though, didn't look back at his partner.

"Mulder, is this what Skinner called us in about? Mulder?"

Now Scully was jogging after him, caught him by the sleeve. He couldn't care if she knew now, he had no one else to tell.

"I'm not going to follow you unless you tell me what's going on, Mulder." Scully's hand dropped from his sleeve and she stood, waiting.

"I don't--"

Her gaze shot to the car. Long curly brown hair framing the pale face of a woman they both knew--

He felt the brush of her hand against him as she ran to the car. As she reached the passenger door and stared inside, her eyes grew wide. She looked up and gazed at him fully. Scared.


	4. Chapter 4

Mulder could remember a nagging feeling that it would be better if his partner found out about the woman. He couldn't bring himself to call her Samantha yet, not after the clones and uncertainty and the hand released in a diner after dark, not since then. He was scarred, burned too much, and when he approached the object of his undoing it was with caution, not naivete. But why else would he have brought one of his best and last secrets to a meeting with his very observant, FBI-trained partner? Certainly not because he wanted to insult her intelligece. Which was exactly how she was taking it.

"Did you think I wouldn't notice, Mulder?"

"I was hoping that my stunning charm and boyish good looks would distract you, Scully."

"I cannot believe you. I simply cannot believe that you would make a breach this great--"

"Without reason? Without cause? Even if she's not my sister, Scully, I do feel-- something toward her."

Scully made a soft displeased sound.

"You weren't there," he lashed out, and regretted it immediately.

"I saw you when she fell off the bridge, Mulder, I was there," Scully said, after waiting a beat. "I remember, even if you don't."

"I remember, all right." His father's face. The letter. The responsibility, the choked sobs and nights spent holding his own grief in his hands, staring at it with both a lack of and too much comprehension. Wanting to forget, and cursing his memory. Her desperate pleading. Watching Scully twice die before his very eyes, realizing that the hole Diana had left was now changed into a little Scully-shape and she fit so perfectly, even Diana wouldn't be enough to fill this emptiness. The screaming impotence of knowing that they could take so much from him, and he could not find the power within himself to fight them.

But he would fight for her.

He had even made the choice, that awful choice, to let his sister accept the danger his partner could handle all too well. The bridge, the sharpshooter, the splash, his life had ended save for the woman who sat in the passenger seat of his rental car. She who was not willing to believe, but would try for his sake. For his sanity.

He snorted. What of it there was.

Scully sighed. "Do you have her phone number?"

"No. --Now before you get defensive about how did I know it was her, and how did I contact her, I didn't. She just showed up sometimes. That was all."

Scully didn't say anything. She walked between the coffee table and black leather couch to the fish tank, stared at its three lone occupants. Her fingernail idly tapped the glass.

"Byers, Langly, and Frohike?" A ghost of a smile flirted with her lips.

"Not quite." Silence, save the hum of the water heater and Mulder's computer monitor, the aerator of the fish tank. Scully felt a total and utter lack of control. The only thing she could focus on was the fact that she needed to pick up the dry cleaning and call her brother Bill back. And fill out a requisition form about a new cellphone. Change the oil in her car. Concrete things. Not Mulder's theories and the sister who was sometimes there, sometimes not; not Skinner's directives regarding her rogue partner. The poster she'd sent off to the sheriff in Maine, and his thank-you letter. Somewhat befuddled, but thankful. The air moving in and out of her lungs. Solid. Comfort.

Agent Spender's partner, a man who'd asked her out not too long ago. She'd put it off. Should she let him? Would it really be the betrayal she kept thinking it would be? The animosity between their partners could be cut with a chainsaw. But he was solid. Solid as her fingernail still tapping against the glass, shivering, echoing, and she didn't know what she was doing anymore.

"Do you have any more of my tea bags?" she suddenly asked. Last night she had used the last of her own.

"Don't think so," he replied. His voice was muffled. His head was in his hands, which were steepled and tight. He looked up, met her eyes. Neither of them smiled.

"Okay. See you in the office," Scully said. Her arms were still tight around her trenchcoat, clenching the cloth against her waist. Both of them were doctors, but neither could help the other. Sometimes neither thought they could.

After Mulder had seen the taillights of Scully's car vanish into the dark, he walked into his kitchen and opened a drawer. Between two fingers he pulled up a tea bag. Sometimes it was the only thing that made him feel better. His sanity had been wrapped up in its smell as his partner had lay catatonic. His horror and anger had been the same emotion, spent on two different people.

He knew she would die one day. But not by the hands of Them, not if he could help it at all. Never at the hand of a man he had been trying to thwart since before he had met her. She would not be the tool They could use to break him. Never. The guilt would probably be more crushing than the loneliness. That was certainly the way it had been with his sister. He missed her, but the guilt and his father's disapproval had been by far the more terrifying.

He stared down at the tea bag, unsmilingly, and put it back in the drawer. Part of a Maggie Scully care package. He barely remembered what else she had sent. The tea bag was the only artifact that remained of the comfort of someone other than his partner. Without it, he'd have absolutely nothing to keep him from soaring spread-eagle over the edge the next time. He knew there would be a next time.

He did not remember his dreams the next morning.

--

"Did you know who she was?" AD Walter Skinner began.

Scully imagined Mulder down in the basement, pouring over the Son of Flukeman case. She couldn't even remember what she'd identified the newer parasite as. Not that it mattered at all, by the time she got down there he'd have a full description of symptoms and characteristics to catch her up. He had seen nothing strange about Skinner's summons and had given her no coaching in regard to her answers. Definitely not the same response he'd had during the debriefings in the Texas vampire case.

"I know who Agent Mulder believed her to be, sir," Scully phrased carefully. That was completely true.

"We both know who he _thought_ she was, but who was she?"

"She's going by Megan Kearney," Dana recited from memory. "She has a husband and a child. She lives twenty miles away, and she says that a man we both know claimed to be her father."

Skinner's face tightened in memory. The man they both knew.

"Sir, she shows no signs of mental instability, nor has she escaped from any institution. Her background is perfectly legitimate or flawlessly forged." Scully finally met his eyes.

"More lies," Skinner growled under his breath. "All right," he spoke up. "Report to me if anything I should know about comes to your attentions."

"Sir," Scully nodded, leaving the office.

She found Mulder setting up the slide projector.

"Have you seen my cattle mutilation slides, Scully?" Mulder called over his shoulder. He was searching a file cabinet.

Scully mimicked scratching her head. "Hm, I distinctly remember filing them all under 'c' for cattle mutilations. That was also when I was cross-referencing 'hiding in plain sight.' Remember that?"

"I said I was sorry," Mulder whined. "Besides, you actually saw that."

"I'm not gonna argue with you." Scully walked over, jerked open a file cabinet, and started leafing through. The file she had just named was nowhere to be seen.

"What is this for again?" she asked, sneezing.

"UFO convention in Atlanta. Skinner gave us both permission to go. I think it's so he can check up on my 'sister.'" Mulder disgustedly slammed a file cabinet shut. "Find anything?"

Scully sighed. First a meeting with Skinner, then a Mulder-goose-hunt.

"Have you seen the Advil?" she asked him.


	5. Chapter 5

Moonlight glinted off the dry-cleaning bag, her wine and beige suits. She nodded, her head slow and sleepy against her pillow, and glanced at the clock. 4:30 AM. Mulder would be asleep, if his insomniac senses could be dulled for a while. It was her turn to go by and pick him up, since his apartment was closer to the airport. Plus, he had been complaining of a headache for much longer than she had.

Scully began making a checklist inside her head. Suitcase and toiletry bag packed except for what she would need to get ready. Keys and coat by the door. Suit laid out for after the shower and her carry-on bag already held her PowerBook and its accessories.

Scully sighed and sat up. Time to get ready for a convention that was sure to be as much fun for her as Mulder wanted it to be. Well, at least she had met a rather cute nut at the last one. He had seemed in awe of her status as an FBI special agent assigned to the Flaky One, and Scully decided she was either going to have to change her reputation, or choose one and go with it. Mrs. Spooky wouldn't be that bad, and she could rub it in Colton's face.

Knock, knock.

"I know you're in there, Mulder."

Mulder the GQ FBI Ken doll opened the door, clad in a charcoal grey suit. Scully was in wine and ivory, immaculate makeup and hair. She was a touch too chipper for the wee hours of the morning, and his neighbors weren't at all accustomed to such, especially from his apartment. He nodded her inside and went back to tossing clothes inside his suitcase.

"Did my favorite partner have just a little too much coffee this morning?" he asked, looking for some more clean undershirts. He poked his head out of the closet to see her face as she replied.

"You need a new housekeeper," Scully said, looking at his desk in disgust.

"Hey, I know where everything is, except for those damned cattle mutilation slides. Bet Spender stole 'em." Mulder emerged from the closet with a handful of undershirts, shooting an angry look at the ceiling, in memory of another camera, another night.

"Bet me what? That I'll get to drive at least half the way to the convention if I find them within a week?" Scully demanded, putting a hand on her hip.

He took one last glance around before dragging his partner out the door.

* * *

** This is all I have written, and, as I have no real recollection of where I wanted to go from here, I'm going to let this stand as is, unsatisfactorily incomplete. If anyone wants to pick it up and continue, feel free, just let me know. **


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